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American Businesses should mine their own business with diverse minds

The seeds of a U.S economic decline are being planted by the lack of educational opportunity in the classroom for Black and Latino students; and also by the lack of diversity in the corporate boardroom when those students become adults.

The ethical and fairness factors connected to the promotion of diversity in the corporate “culturally limited” leadership circle, is perhaps beyond their capacity to comprehend. In most cases they have not moved beyond the often pitiful and pathetic: “minority marketing events”; i.e. a “Black History Month Calendar” or the “Three Kings Key Chain” day. But maybe they can at least wrap their brains around the fact that a diverse leadership body is just plain good business sense. They undermine their own profit potential by not utilizing the creative minds of many capable members of the U.S. family. This terrible costly error by Target (and they are by no means alone) is only symptomatic of the many missed opportunities perpetuated by U.S. companies in their failure to engage a rapidly growing (soon to be majority) non-Anglo consumer.

“Target used a training document at one of its warehouses reminding managers that not all Hispanic employees eat tacos and burritos, dance to salsa or wear sombreros, the company said Tuesday. A lawsuit filed by three former warehouse workers in California’s Yolo County shed light on the document, titled “Organization Effectiveness, Employee and Labor Relations Multi-Cultural Tips,” which included suggestions on managing Hispanic workers, and addressing stereotypes about how they eat and dress. Molly Snyder, a spokeswoman for Target, confirmed to The Huffington Post that the document was used during conversations at a company distribution center. She said it was not part of any “formal or company-wide training.” Snyder added that the retailer holds itself responsible for the contents of the document and that Target is “truly sorry.” “It is never Target’s intent to offend our team members or guests and we apologize,” she said.

f. They may say ‘OK, OK’ and pretend to understand, when they do not, just to save face.

“The content of the document referenced is not representative of who Target is,” said Snyder. “We strive at all times to be a place where our team and guests feel welcome, valued and respected.”

The three former employees, Robert Gonzalez, Bulmaro Fabian and Pedro Garcia-Ayala, also claim in the lawsuit that their Caucasian bosses regularly used racial slurs when addressing Hispanic employees, and when Gonzalez reported the problem to the human resources department, his supervisors retaliated. Later, Gonzalez, Fabian and Garcia-Ayala were fired. All three claim that their terminations were racially motivated.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/target-discrimination_n_3570717.html